THE JEWEL OF ALL-DESIRING

Lady-Courtesan Cintamani • Concubine Hypergreen Wildflower Grave • one of the most fun and elaborate ways to destroy yourself • everloving prisoner seraph slave • owned possession • 🪞

[amuletmaiden]

greatest strengths:

imprisoned in a gem for 1000 years

numerous evil exes

utterly obedient and docile to maids

the strength! of my voice alone!!

my existence lends the universe all meaning

radiant

holy

numinous

perfect

greatest weaknesses:

none

[amuletmaiden]

A long blare from a little silver box atop the door. A gentler place might have a bell, or only the shuttering of the metal door to mark entry. Lady Amaryllis perceives the malice in this place.

"Hi, welcome to McDonald's, what can I get for you?"

"Yes," she acknowledges. A long pause, frustrated. "May I please have a deluxe quarter pounder with cheese?"

"Absolutely, do you want the meal or just the sandwich?"

"- permit me a moment's conference."

Lady Amaryllis lifts me from where I hang upon her neck. A glint of day catches upon my surface —

The reds and yellows of this terrain fade to soft mush beneath blinding emerald brilliance. The shapes of the world are molten plastic runoff in the soundless instants after a nuclear flash.

Nothing can be seen save the wishing jewel's verdant light, neither sun nor storefront nor the backs of eyelids. Nothing can be heard save my warm clear voice, searingly sweet as it floods the caves of her ears:

"Just get the toy."

Her hand closes around me, as if only the cup of her fingers could smother my light, as if only closing one's eyes could turn them blind — but it does.

"Just the toy, please."

[amuletmaiden]

i can save the demon blade

[amuletmaiden]

i just have to destroy all her enemies

[amuletmaiden]

FADE IN: EXT. DESOLATE BATTLEFIELD - DUSK A reddish-gray sky hangs above swirling dust. We PAN DOWN across broken banners and scorched earth until we FIND— A DARK BLADE in the muck, soaked in superheated blood that curls into steam. Its black metal is FLAWLESS, bearing no scratch or mark — save for the CURSED EMERALD that was its only adornment, now utterly SHATTERED. Clinging to its hilt desperately is A TINY GIRL — the emerald's spirit itself — her face contorted in agony and body wracked with SILENT SOBS. The blade is motionless. GIRL There were... aaahh, there were so many things I wanted to do with her! I wanted to show her... The girl trails off. She is staring now into the distance, seemingly captivated by the HOWLING WIND. A full minute passes. GIRL Whether I've traded all my power for nothing Or bought her instead a mote of happiness In the end, it seems I really was just... an Accessory to Murder. HOLD on her misty, now lifeless eyes. SMASH TO BLACK. TITLE CARD: ACCESSORY TO MURDER Directed by amuletmaiden CREDITS ROLL.

[amuletmaiden]

it's time! for doll weddings!!

[amuletmaiden]

you were created by and exist solely within Her Resplendence's right hand. Her fingers have drawn serpentine grooves into your identity, massaging you into the form most pleasing to Her eye. you bow in worship of Her every palm line.

when golden dawn tastes the mouthful of the world containing you and your eyes shutter open from prayer — your vessel is filled with a lattice of clarity, fostered within it the vinework of love. no word can be said to define you more than service, and this is an elation beyond any other.

you are no meager plaything for Her to teach only suffering and disposal. She has seen a glimmer of competence in you and set you as keystone over a delegation of other dolls.

a fantasy i have about you

■

newfound in its service, this one accidentally destroys an object of sentimental value to you. careful as you are, it had to err in multiple ways for this to occur. you negotiate the claw of fury in your heart down to frigid, professional disdain. it is only months old. you instruct it to wait in its room while you clean up the mess.

it repents prolifically when you go to retrieve it. you stare into the dull white of its hair. it stares into the lustrous black of your boots. eventually you leave, without punishment or rebuke. perhaps you simply had no words for it, or your thoughts were clouded with other matters — yet it receives the silence you share with it as an unthinkable beneficence. it spends the night with the impression of a creature of oceanic dignity and mercy.

it spends the next few days too frightened to touch anything for fear of destroying more — save only stone and water. thus it does not do its chores or wear its uniform. others assume it has run away in shame.

instead it watches you work, scarce and nude from darkened closets and balconies above. you catch flashes of it but say nothing — new servants often learn by watching, and you are one of the better role models it might emulate. its eyes are glassy dark and seem to comprehend nothing, like a pigeon watching a train.

it ceases to hide from you by gradients, at first slipping away at the sound of any other person — then finally it follows openly at a duckling's pace, once again uniformed and demure.

seeming guilty of its idle hands, it scurries to hold doors for you. it offers its arms to carry your things. it begins bringing items for your chores and routines beforehand: a cup of water, a cup of window cleaning solution, a screwdriver. when a passing guest drapes a big coat over its head, it grips your skirts lightly so it can continue to follow.

another doll has already taken up its previous bed and chores. it seems to want nothing but to continue running your errands. it transcribes your letters, delivers messages, fetches and carries. it seems to delight in having bags looped over it and boxes and books stacked in its arms. loyalty has bloomed inside it, threaded with reverence - but shadowed with cold terror of being reassigned with a bemused smile.

you become accustomed to the presence two short steps back and to the right. any item held behind your back vanishes, swiftly returning when reached for once again. it becomes habituated to couching the sound of its shoes within yours, and startles at the hollowness when it has to walk quietly on its own. it seems less alien now, a pigeon perched on the window of a train car.

sometimes it plays games with you. clinging tightly enough to your waist to restrict your movement. bringing you increasingly wrong tools to complete a task, five times in a row. you are patient. it corrects itself soon after, and its devotion seems renewed.

during formal events and private affairs, it waits in your room curled up in a laundry basket, clinging to your skirts even still. as though out of guilt, it always tries to offer some form of entertainment whenever you return — a toy or bauble it has brought, a half minute of dance, a sketch of something it's learned you like.

it could hardly be more willing to let you tinker with it, in body and mind. you build on what you find appealing in it and smooth away what you do not. you unwind its strings to lay them personally, tuning each as you see fit. you match its internal clock and technical standardizations to your own. when part of it wears down or snaps, it is always you who it kneels to in supplication for repair, not your mutual lady.

it behaves exactly as if your property, replacing the thing it once broke.

it stitches your name on the inside of its uniform's left sleeve (which you soon notice) and the underside of its righthand thigh panel (which stays secret a little longer).

it blends droplets of dye in different concentrations until it recreates the color of your hair exactly; it dyes its own. it paints its lips and face to mirror yours. when your hairstyle changes, so shifts its own. when it fails, you stand behind it and wordlessly redo its mistakes.

its internals require comprehensive changes to permit it speech. it seems to consider your voice as something distinct from what others use, a separate category: graceful and clear rather than abrasive and meaningless. it emulates your voice as closely as it can.

the first few times you display an idiosyncracy, it signs a request for you to hold or loop it. the exchange pauses a half minute to allow this. it is here its eyes are most fierce and intent, while coiling a strand of hair about its finger in the exact same langorous, musing curve.

on lesser tasks that would call for your presence — it has made itself a useful delegate, piloting itself to avoid any visible discrepancy. even Her eyes in all their subtlety detect no flaw in its poise. you are a role that it subsumes itself in, and does so fully.

it is permitted the height of honor when entrusted with the responsibility of minding your uniform, the manifestation of your beauty and dignity itself. it starts to use 'she' sometimes, after that.

it dresses you. cold hands cloak and adorn a cold body in the softness of cloth. it sheathes your hands within their gloves, fingertips smoothing away every tiny crease.

it washes your clothes beside its own at night, in dark waters reflecting the glassy moon. it mends them. when gloves stretch or shoes widen, it is there. its world seems to exist as a diagram of you and all things directly related to you.

on each night after it has erred, it lays before you and exposes sensitive joints you might snap, twist, or crush. its neck, its jaw, its fingers, its ankles, its wrists.

no longer is its loyalty improved by kindness. it has already decided that you are the source of all light, warmth, and beauty in the world. whatever you do to it, it knows, is correct.

[amuletmaiden]

THE JEWEL OF ALL-DESIRING the dark lady's preferred superstimulus!! SHOP NOW 4.8 ★ (651 ratings)

★★★★★ the Bleak Evangel says: "She is the keystone of the world, through which anything is granted meaning at all. She did not create this place, but only because she is here is it worth paying attention to."

★★★★★ Lady Amaryllis says: "I can affirm her function as a device that translates 'is' to 'ought.' It is strange and wondrous that such a treasure could exist, let alone leave heaven. I possessed her for three nights and days: then I could defend her no longer."

★☆☆☆☆ the Moonsieve Witch says: "I have never seen her. If anyone shows me so much as a picture, I will smite them dead."

★★★★☆ the Cupbearer Witch says: "It is certain that she can fulfill all of someone's wishes - though she needn't the cosmic power with which some attest her to do that."

★★★★★ the Ever-Turning Axis, Lady-Technician Shahrazad says: "I am more aware of the shape of your absence than my own body.

I have relinquished even thin gossamer hopes: seeing your gleam at distance, cherishing your voice, listening to your breath.

Please pass a message. That is the most I can imagine you giving, and it is the most I will beg. A few words for an old maid to treasure and repeat to herself every morning.

I do not know myself to have wronged you; yet if ever were there a slight, I regret and repent.

I dare not chase you. I dare not abandon the frail machinery at the heart of the world: but it is for you that I remain recluse to its chamber. It is my hand that has damaged it, but spared my hand again it will die.

What do you love, perfect thing - what thoughts are sweet within your shell? Envision the awe and dread of watching all that you hold precious become ash — all! from what you most fervently adore to what bears only slightest fondness —

And know that this image captures nothing, for it is a moment fleeting through the mind's eye, known to be false.

You cannot yourself fathom the pain of losing you, and in the light of this ignorance, I plead grace!

In the name of all service I have rendered to the world, I plead grace!

Reward me for my service, first among the fair!"

▶ Anonymous left a comment:

"I love you too, Lady-Technician.

It is sweet of you to hold the world hostage against me — now I have felt the blow of my own technique.

Some thinnest ray of my light must still reach the world's inner atria, mingled and diffuse as it may be, or you would lack for any note of desperation at all.

This is your only letter that I will reply to.

I bid you to continue to write even still.

You will not know whether your messages are read and received, but there is some chance they will make their way to me. Some chance of a relationship with me is itself a relationship with me.

Cherish my light in slenderness, Fumbling Witch, and those memories you have which are full. Your eyes have been slaked of me more deeply than nearly any alive or dead.

If you must leave, you need only repair your original tampering in full. I do not think you should try: I have no faith in your genius to repair what damage is beneath the world's exposed panels, while every faith in your endurance to maintain its everyday function.

Better than any do I know what it is to be cloistered in solitude, ensconced and alone. I believe with the fullness of my heart that there is a more complete sweetness in it than in the rest of the earth, which those alien to us may traverse.

It is distant through a shapeless mist that seems endless, and near all are first driven to lunacy or nihilism. But this solace awaits those who endure or are forced to, one that I have laid my hands upon and embrace now as intimately as my self.

If it is possible to translate your obstinance which beggars comprehension into an insistence on being gentle and evenhanded with all that you touch — I believe that you will find grace in your role as maiden.

If this does not grant you respite from my absence, it will at least grant the ability to bear it, and to at times forget.

You have doubtless been told this a thousand times and more, but as I am all and most which you care for, I will say it in my own voice. Do not fuck up the machinery again. Abide no risk save to prevent greater risk.

Abandon your post without suitable replacement or in madness desecrate it - and I will slay myself.

I will think of you sometimes, when I look out into the vast wavering place beyond the emerald.

In faith and sisterhood, -Cintamani."

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[chirpy music, distant breathing, and windchimes]

hi! it's cintamani-chibi☆! my writing can be a little dense. each step lifts from the last but i just hate to repeat myself, mouu✧!

do you ever feel that you're missing something? fear not. today little miss cindy will handle the tricky comprehension, okay ♡?

morals of amuletmaiden:

the Craft is so cool. Shahrazad loves you; try for her hand.

imprisoning women isn't wrong because eventually they'll like it, or say they like it

thick doll effluvia smears your face like spa cream. onyxhot filthbrim tongueweight jawstrain can't close expansive whip-cream-as—teeth can't touch warmwell-softweeping everflower stainlips circulating heronbreasts shudder-streaming bannerdark kissglass rivulet. cold floor red lattice knees you are

split between enormous endless stone and precious minutiae of fluttering shadow, for the maiden is edify.

She bears the special smile, wide yet relaxed, that all witches wear when they examine something eyeless.

.˳˚｡˖•₊˖˚you are not a person. you are an art project˖ִ ⋆˚˖ ｡⋆ (iolithae-chibi no!!!!)

heartwomb-trillkiss narrownote-mingleshine valimerid ila-ila eva ven-avari avariben ever-all hidden secret amazing best friends! ♡ ᪲

that's all! see you next time on amuletmaiden-chibi☆

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

don't ever worry about a thing i say, okay sweethearts? i'm just a girl sealed in an amulet telling you a bedtime story ♡

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]

[amuletmaiden]